Historical Right

The Historical Right was a conservative faction of Italian politics which existed from 1849 to 1882, when it became the Destra Liberale faction. The Right grew out of the Moderati who supported the unification of Italy as a federation of states, and the Right was divided between the conservative faction (led by Massimo d'Azeglio, Luigi Cibrario, Alfonso La Marmora, and Carlo Bon Compagni, who supported compromises with the Catholic Church and gradual unification) and the liberal faction (led by Camillo Benso di Cavour, Luigi Carlo Farini, and Giovanni Galvagno, who were anti-clerical, supported a lesser role for the King in government, and supported French intervention in Italy). The Right represented the interests of the northern bourgeoisie and the southern aristocracy, and its members were mostly large landowners, industrialists, and militarists. It supported laissez-faire and free trade economics while supporting a strong central government, obligatory conscription, secularism, the unification of Italy, and an alliance with Britain, France, and Germany against Austria-Hungary. During the 1870s, the party was split into the pro-German and conservative Emilian clique, the liberal and pro-France Piedmontese clique, the moderate Tuscan clique, and the centrist and secularist Lombardian clique. After the fall of Marco Minghetti's government in 1876, the Right progressively disbanded, leading to the rise of the Destra Liberale party in 1882.